The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) project is the largest new-technology research and development project launched by the 3GPP in recent years. Such a network using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing/Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDM/FDMA) as a core technology may be considered as a “quasi-4G” network, and is greatly advantageous over another network. Therefore, an operator gradually expands deployment of a 3GPP LTE network.
In addition, to reduce maintenance costs of an entire network, the operator also gradually reduces maintenance on another network, for example, reduces services of a Global System for Mobile Communication/General Packet Radio Service (GSM/GPRS) network.
The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a network in which information about the physical world is acquired by deploying various devices having sense, computation, execution, and communication capabilities, and information transmission, collaboration, and processing are implemented using a network, in order to implement interconnection between a human and a thing and between one thing and another thing. Possible applications include various aspects such as a smart grid, intelligent agriculture, intelligent transportation, and environmental monitoring. The development of the Internet of Things is honored as the third wave of the information industry after the computer and the Internet, on which great expectations are held, and the Internet of Things is extremely popular and valued in research institutions and the industry. In addition, a related standard organization also starts work of standardization of related technologies of the Internet of Things.
Machine-to-Machine (M2M) is a technology and standardization concept proposed by the 3GPP to study how to carry an application of the Internet of Things on a mobile communication network, and a specialized project group is set up to study enhancement or optimization that needs to be performed on the mobile communication network because of introduction of an M2M communication (MTC) device. The reason is that because a terminal in a GSM/GPRS network has a low price, most M2M application providers are more inclined to provide an M2M service using the GSM/GPRS network based on a GSM/GPRS terminal, which conflicts with the foregoing network planning and deployment of the operator. The operator hopes that an LTE network based terminal whose costs are comparable to costs of the GSM/GPRS terminal or even lower than the costs of the GSM/GPRS terminal can be provided, to attract an M2M service provider to select an LTE network to provide an M2M service, thereby implementing migration of an M2M application from a GSM/GRPS network to the LTE network.
Provision of low-cost MTC user equipments (UEs) based on LTE (provision of low-cost MTC UEs based on LTE) is exactly a project group that aims to reduce costs of an LTE terminal to enhance support from an LTE network to an M2M application. The project group proposes that reducing transmitting/receiving bandwidth supported by an LTE terminal can effectively decrease costs of the LTE terminal. A terminal whose supported transmitting/receiving bandwidth is reduced is referred to as a narrowband terminal.
A possible implementation method for supporting a narrowband terminal in a system is dividing a broadband of the system into multiple narrow bands. As shown in FIG. 1, each narrowband obtained through division includes a control channel and/or a data channel, for example, an Enhanced Physical Downlink Control Channel (ePDCCH) and/or a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH).
If the foregoing narrowband terminal cannot receive a conventional Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) but can receive only an ePDCCH, how to effectively notify the narrowband terminal of information such as division of the foregoing narrowbands and a configuration of the ePDCCH is a problem that needs to be resolved.
In addition, application scenarios of some narrowband terminals are relatively special. For example, for an intelligent instrument in a basement, because of a relatively large penetration loss, a space loss is relatively large, and to provide an effective service to the intelligent instrument, targeted coverage enhancement needs to be performed on the intelligent instrument, for example, transmission is repeated multiple times. Moreover, these terminals are generally in a static or low-speed moving state, and some conventional system information, for example, system information about system bandwidth and system information about mobility management, may become meaningless to these terminals. A possible method is reorganizing all necessary system information, to form one piece of comprehensive system information for the foregoing narrowband terminal for centralized transmission. How to effectively send the foregoing comprehensive system information is also a problem that needs to be resolved.
For an New Carrier Type (NCT) technology that does not support a conventional PDCCH but supports only an ePDCCH, how a terminal acquires ePDCCH configuration information on a corresponding carrier is also a problem that needs to be resolved.
In other approaches, for narrowband configuration information, ePDCCH configuration information, and comprehensive system information configuration information of the narrowband terminal, and for ePDCCH configuration information of the NCT technology, a method in which a location that is pre-defined and fixed is used as a location of an MTC narrowband, comprehensive system information, or an ePDCCH, or as a location for sending an MTC narrowband, comprehensive system information, or ePDCCH configuration information is used, such that the terminal may obtain information about a narrowband, comprehensive system information, and/or an ePDCCH from the foregoing pre-defined and fixed location.
The solution in the other approaches lacks flexibility. Because of the existence of frequency selective fading, the fixed location may cause that the foregoing information or configuration information is in a relatively poor channel state for a long time, and the terminal cannot effectively acquire the information or the configuration information; moreover, for a narrowband terminal that requires coverage enhancement, because system information or comprehensive system information is sent by scheduling a control channel, in a coverage enhancement scenario, the control channel also needs to be enhanced. Therefore, to send the foregoing system information or comprehensive system information, the control channel for the system information or the comprehensive system information needs to be scheduled to perform transmission multiple times. On one hand, resources are wasted; and on the other hand, because the control channel that is sent multiple times may also be incorrectly interpreted, a higher error probability is caused, thereby increasing a time for distributing the system information.